In the construction industry (and others), various work vehicles are operated to perform various tasks at a work site. For example, crawler dozers (hereafter “dozers”), motor graders (hereafter “graders”), and other bladed work vehicles are well-suited for spreading, shearing, carrying, and otherwise moving relatively large volumes of earth. Bladed work vehicles are now commonly equipped with blade actuation systems enabling an operator to manipulate a work vehicle's blade in multiple degrees of freedom (DOFs). In the case of a crawler dozer, for example, an operator may be able to adjust the height, pitch, and rotational angle of the blade through an electro-hydraulic blade actuation system, which is integrated into a blade control assembly mounting the blade to a forward portion of the crawler dozer. Such multi-DOF blade movement provides a powerful and flexible tool in earthmoving operations. However, as the freedom of blade movement increases, so too does the complexity of the operator controls utilized to control blade movement. This, in turn, provides greater opportunities for sub-optimal positioning of the blade and increases the mental workload placed on an operator of the bladed work vehicle.
Advanced Grade Control Systems (GCSs) have been developed for automatically controlling the blade of the crawler dozer, which reduce operator workload. These GCS systems generally control a movement of the blade, including the blade height and cut depth, to arrive at a desired grade. These GCSs, however, may not take into account other factors associated with the crawler dozer during movement of the blade, for example, instances in which the crawler dozer is stationary or when the blade is unable to cut through the ground (or other material) to form the grade while the crawler dozer is moving. In these instances, the GCSs may continue to lower the blade, which may result in the crawler dozer pitching backwards or “bridging.” The bridging of the crawler dozer may damage the crawler dozer, and may create an unsatisfactory work environment for the operator.